Magnolia Pictures have announced they will allow filmgoers to choose how much they want to pay for an advance look at Freakonomics: The Movie.

These pay-what-you-want screenings offer fans a chance to see the film on Wednesday, September 22nd, over a week before its official opening, at Landmark Theatres in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Philadelphia, Denver and Seattle. Tickets for the screenings are now available, and are being exclusively sold online through MovieTickets.com. Filmgoers can choose how much they wish to pay-anywhere in the range of $.01 to $100, with the completion of a short questionnaire.

Sounds like a fun publicity stunt which perfectly ties in with the books and the film. Read the full press release after the jump.

Pay What You Want for a Sneak Preview of Freakonomics: The Movie

Screenings in ten cities offer fans an opportunity to see the upcoming film based on the internationally bestselling book for a price that they choose.

New York, NY (September 15, 2010) Magnolia Pictures and the Green Film Company announced today a unique screening program in ten cities across the country that will allow filmgoers to choose how much they want to pay for an advance look at Freakonomics: The Movie. The highly anticipated film version of the internationally bestselling book by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt hits theaters nationwide on October 1st. These pay-what-you-want screenings offer fans a chance to see the film on Wednesday, September 22nd, over a week before its official opening, at Landmark Theatres in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Philadelphia, Denver and Seattle.

Tickets for the screenings are now available, and are being exclusively sold online through MovieTickets.com. Filmgoers can choose how much they wish to pay-anywhere in the range of $.01 to $100, with the completion of a short questionnaire. The survey, which after completion gives access to the ticket buying page on MovieTickets.com is accessible here:

The data collected anonymously at the time of purchase will be analyzed by authors Dubner and Levitt to identify what factors and circumstances prompt movie-goers to pay more or less for their screening tickets.

In the spirit of the creative, incentives-based thinking behind Freakonomics, the pay-what-you-want screenings reference a popular experiment from the original book, in which authors Levitt and Dubner analyze how people interact with a weekly, pay-what-you-want bagel delivery service.

“The pay-what-you-want screening represents a fun and engaging way to illustrate the underlying premise of Freakonomics-the application of economics and incentives-based thinking to everyday situations to uncover surprising and sometimes controversial conclusions,” muses producer Chad Troutwine. “It seems only fitting, then, to engage Freakonomics audiences in their own local economic experiment, offering a chance to see the film in advance of its theatrical release while simultaneously bringing the concept of incentives thinking to life.”

Produced by Green Film Company and distributed by Magnolia Pictures, Freakonomics examines human behavior with provocative and often hilarious case studies brought to life by a dream team of Academy Award® and Sundance Film Festival winning directors. Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing (Jesus Camp) balance levity and candor with their eye-opening profile of underachieving kids incentivized to learn with cold hard cash. Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) delivers a visually arresting look at the crumbling facade of Sumo wrestling. Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) offers up a buoyant and revealing angle on the repercussions of baby names. Finally, Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight) investigates an unsettling theory to explain why crime rates dramatically dropped in the early 1990s. Seth Gordon (The King of Kong) weaves the segments together with brisk interludes, providing context and commentary from authors Dubner and Levitt.

Space at the pay-what-you-want screenings are limited, and tickets available on a first come, first served basis. In addition to opening theatrically nationwide on October 1st, Freakonomics is also available for rent at a premium advance price on iTunes (www.iTunes.com/freakonomics), Amazon, and On Demand through major cable providers everywhere.

About Magnolia Pictures

Magnolia Pictures (www.magpictures.com) is the theatrical and home entertainment distribution arm of the Wagner/Cuban Companies, a vertically-integrated group of media properties co-owned by Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban that also includes the Landmark Theatres chain, the production company 2929 Productions, and the high definition cable network HDNet. Magnolia’s releases include such critically acclaimed films as the Oscar nominated documentary Food, Inc, Oscar winner Man on Wire, James Gray’s Two Lovers, Stephen Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Expereince, Bong Joon-Ho’s Mother, Oscar-winner Alex Gibney’s Casino Jack and the United States of Money, the documentarian-dream-team omnibus, Freakonomics: The Movie, Luca Guadagnino’s I Am Love, Neil Jordan’s Ondine, Bob Pulcini and Shari Berman’s The Extra Man, Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix’s I’m Still Here, and the hard hitting nuclear weapons documentary Countdown to Zero. Upcoming releases include Tanya Elaine-Hamilton’s Night Catches Us, Alex Gibney’s Client 9:The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, Andrew Jarecki’s All Good Things, and much more.

About Green Film Company

Green Film Company (www.greenfilmcompany.com) is a New York-based producer of film and television. The company’s first project, the Emmy-nominated By The People: The Election of Barack Obama, was co-produced with Edward Norton’s Class 5 Films, and distributed by HBO Documentary Films, BBC, and Sony Pictures Worldwide. The company’s current projects Freakonomics and Gerrymandering premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival before 2010 theatrical releases. Green Film Company is backed by private equity financing and is developing film and television projects with some of the industry’s most respected writers and filmmakers.